Night call
by chiusobottega
Summary: Season 11, post Ghouli. After the events of Ghouli something has been buggin Mulder, and he goes seeking for confirmation. One shot.
1. Chapter 1

**_The last time I wrote fanfics about the XFiles I didn't even know what a fanfic was, but obviously the 11th season has brought back many ideas and inspirations._**

 ** _As shocked and upset as I was for the revelation in "My Struggle III", a part of me sees the potential story lines in that: and after "Ghouli" this little idea has not left my mind._**

* * *

It was past midnight, and given the events of the past few days he had very little doubt as to who the person banging on his door might have been. It didn't make things any easier, being woken up in the middle of the night never was to begin with, and the time it took him to cover the distance between his bedroom and the door was not enough to figure out a proper strategy.

When he opened the door, Skinner was not surprised to see Mulder standing in the hallway, but he still was unsure about the reason of that late night visit. Which, if anything, helped him with the only approach he had had been able to come up with.

Play dumb.

"Agent Mulder, what are you doing here?" The first question was predictable, therefore easy. "Is there anything new about-"

"He's not my son, is he?" Mulder's voice was barely a level above whispering, but his sombre and serious face was screaming out loud. "Jackson, William…I am not his father."

Skinner felt a cold chill running underneath his skin, baffled by the simultaneous defeated and determined expression on his face. He had seen Mulder in hanger and fear, outraged and out control, desperate to get to the truth and blinded by the power of his quest; but he had never seen him afraid of what he might find at the end of the road.

Not until that night.

He gulped down a nervous lump in his throat, trying to make eye contact with Mulder and not at all reassured to see he was avoiding doing so. Then he carefully stepped aside and gestured him to move forward.

"Maybe you should come inside," he offered.

"Will you answer change if I do?"

It was a moment, a passing instant in which Skinner could see the agent willing to fight back whatever he thought he was about to face. It was hiding behind a touch of sarcasm, but it was thin a see-through barrier and it fell shortly afterwards, when Mulder stepped inside. Skinner closed the door and noticed Mulder only took a couple of steps inside his apartment, not taking off his coat. Whatever he was hoping, fearing or simply expecting to hear, he wasn't going to make himself comfortable. Perhaps because there was no way for that be anywhere near close to be as such.

Which meant it was better to cut to chase. Mulder looked like he had his mind made up already, standing on the edge of a bottomless chasm and only waiting for someone to give him the final shove.

"How do you know?"

Skinner felt like he was giving up as he uttered those words, but that was a battle he couldn't really win. And even if he had any doubts about it, they vanished when Mulder sunk his hands in the pockets of his coat and shrugged, helplessly, then leaning with his back on the wall.

"You've been tiptoeing around us since Scully's accident, stiffening up at the mere mention of William. And I could recognise the smell of those damn Morley from a mile." He glanced up at him quickly, taking in the way his superior winced with no reaction that Skinner could see. "The visions, the dreams…all the connections with William have come through Scully but not me, and his DNA only showed matches to hers. These past few days I have been a mere spectator of what was going on, and it had me wonder if I wasn't more clueless than what I thought. My good old paranoid instincts kicked in, and I am not exactly familiar with good things happening in my life." He shrugged again, in the deem light of his apartment Skinner caught a bitter sweet smile on Mulder's face and he thought that if the agent was trying to tough it up and act like he had come to terms with it he was doing an horrible job at that. "And now this Crossroads Project. It wouldn't be the first time for Scully to be the subject of invasive experimentation… It just all makes sense."

Skinner clenched his jaw, wondering if he was about to witness some serious meltdown from a man he had rarely seen not in control of his own emotions. Yet again, the few times he could recall such phenomenon had been about Scully, and to find out he had wrongly believed to be a father for an odd twenty years sure called for some degree of desperation.

"It makes sense, but it's a tough pill to swallow," Mulder spoke again, his voice less steady now that he wasn't listing cold facts and reasoning. "I figured you must have known something_"

"My…source, isn't what I'd call a reliable one," Skinner tried to offer, but Mulder scoffed.

"But you believe him," the agent pointed out.

Skinner could tell there was more behind those words, a statement rather than a question. The question itself was perhaps too hard to ask, no matter how much Mulder had come to terms with the painful revelation. For weeks the AD had been conflicted, torn apart by what he had learned and how, questioning the news and the source. In his mind there was no doubt that he had kept his mouth shut for their sake first of all, but now looking at Mulder slumped again the wall of his living room he could see how his own point of view was a difficult one to share.

Coming to his aide, or sort of, Mulder took a deep breath and straightened up against the wall, finding another way around the uneasy question.

"When you told me to let this go, to stop it…who where you protecting?" Skinner didn't want to give him the wrong idea, but the question left him puzzled enough to give Mulder an enquiring look. "Was it me, us, from the truth? Or was it your source?"

"Agent Mulder, there are many things I have done over the past years thinking I was protecting you and Scully that I couldn't help but question," he confessed, but he meant every bit of it. "I am not sure what this is, but given the circumstances I thought this was one to play to close to the chest until I'll know what is really going on."

Mulder took his time to process the answer, scanning through all the different layers of that convoluted response mixed with the years spent trying to place Skinner's allegiance to them. Then he nodded convincingly to himself and let out a long sigh. To Skinner's surprise, Mulder then stepped away from the wall and toward the door, ready to leave.

"Thank you," he muttered, but Skinner carefully stepped in the way.

"Are you going to tell Scully?"

It killed him to ask and he feared the answer, surprised when Mulder shook his head.

"These past few days…she has found and lost her son more than once, I can't do this to her now."

"Mulder I know this isn't easy, but perhaps you should think about it." Skinner could tell by the look on Mulder's face that his remark needed further explanations. "Those visions she had…a few weeks ago she was hell bent of finding William because she believed it was the only way to save your life. If you're not his father it changes everything-"

"For me maybe, but not for her." Mulder's simple and straightforward way to put it left Skinner somewhat unsettled, a concern that didn't get any better when he smiled bitterly. "He's still her son, nothing is going to change that."

With that said Mulder grabbed the handle and opened the door, stepping back in the hallway where the light made him look like he was 20 years older all of a sudden. Thoughtful, Skinner followed him shortly massaging his forehead, not sure he wanted him to go.

"Agent Mulder." Mulder turned around, looking tired like a man who had spent the past week of so chasing a truth he didn't want to find would look. "That poster in your office…I used to make fun of it, like everybody else. When we started to work closely and it began to piss me off, it was like a slap in the face for all the people like me who thought you had the talent to achieve great things in the Bureau." For a moment Skinner expected Mulder to roll his eyes, annoyed at hearing the old riff after so many years, but the agent didn't budge. "Then I got you know you, you and Scully, and I realised that poster was a statement for you, a declaration of intent. The FBI might have thought they'd hid you away in the basement but that was where you wanted to be, and you were going to own it. And since your abduction I discovered the true meaning of it, I started to share it." He looked down at his own feet for a moment, clearly gathering the courage for the last stretch before looking back up at him. "Some things though, some I really don't want to believe."

Mulder held his gaze for some long and silent seconds, processing his words and piling up on all the things he had been through over the past few days. Eventually, probably relying on the last bit of energy and self-control he had left, he nodded at Skinner with a reassuring look.

"Good for you sir," he said, and Skinner could feel how much he had wanted someone to say the same to him in that very moment. "Good for you."

As he watched Mulder walking away, his back now straight and his walk stead, Skinner felt confused. He had come to him crushed by a possible revelation, and somehow the feared confirmation had relieved him of that weight.

 _ **Feel free to leave your reviews, bad or good!**_


	2. Chapter 2

**_It was supposed to be a one shot, but then I thought I needed a little moment for Mulder and Scully as well._**

 ** _A little note: I know we haven't seen much of Scully's apartments in the new seasons, but I am still not sure whether they are both staying at Mulder's place for good and I wanted this to take place at hers._**

* * *

He watched her sleep for a few minutes, curled up on her right side and tucked under the covers. The lamp on the nightstand was on and the light was cutting on her face with a gentle angle, almost caressing her cheek. He could see how serene she looked, and as little as a consolation as it was it made him feel a bit better.

Mulder let her sleep, God knows she needed some rest, and made his way to the living room. He toed off his shoes and got rid of the tie and jacket, trying to make himself comfortable. It had never been a problem for him, Scully's apartment was like a second home for him, but in the light of his recent conversation with Skinner he struggled to be at ease with pretty much anything. He hadn't objected when she had wanted to go back to her place, it made sense that she wanted to be somewhere familiar, some place where she could be in control of what was going on around her. Mulder felt somewhat guilty for sneaking out and go see Skinner while she was asleep, but he was confident she was safe and that she wasn't going to notice he was gone.

Scully's state of mind over the past few days had been very difficult for him to keep up with, understandably so she had been on an emotional rollercoaster and he was now going through one of his own. But somehow that last "encounter" with William had helped her find a balance. Their…her son was gone, but he knew about her and most importantly he cared enough to let her know. Even though Scully couldn't know for sure she thought him safe, at least for the time being, and given the fact just a couple of days earlier she was bearing her soul to her thought to be dead son it was a major improvement.

He lied down on the couch and grabbed the remote, putting the TV on mute before flipping through some channels until he found "A league on their own". Not that he was actually going to watch it, because his mind wandered off the second he stopped pushing the button on the remote trying to focus on how not to give anything away with Scully.

It wasn't long before he heard some muffled noises coming from the bedroom, he took a big sigh and removed the mute adding some bars to the volume of the TV, then just waited.

"Hei," Scully's croaking voice came from behind him and he propped up from the couch.

"Hei," he said back, moving his legs away and sitting up. "Sorry, did I wake you?"

"No, don't worry Mulder." Scully massaged the back of her neck, probably a little stiff after a few hours of sleep. "Why did you let me sleep so much?"

He was about to respond but stopped when she leaned on him, laying down and resting her had on his lap. Mulder smiled as she made herself comfortable, he looked around and grabbed the blanket from the back of the couch and wrapped it around her.

"You didn't get much sleep over the past few days," he said then, absently stroking her face with his free hand as she took hold of his right one.

"You did?" She asked with a chuckle, and despite everything Mulder was great to see felt better enough to find something to joke about, however small.

"Well, I didn't feel trapped in my dreams and stalked by a mysterious presence," he pointed out.

Scully let that sink in without saying a word but he detected no signs of sudden discomfort, and instead she directed her attention to the screen.

"Seriously Mulder? Female baseball?"

Mulder rolled his eyes and looked down at her with his best pouting face.

"Female baseball? I'll have you know Scully that this movie is based on real historical events-"

"And has a very young and attractive Madonna in short skirts."

"Uhm," he mumbled, "is that her?"

Scully looked up at him and rolled her eyes, deep down enjoying that he could still pull off that boyish grin. Then she snuggled up on him even more and enjoyed the gentle way he kept caressing her shoulder under the blanket.

"What time is it anyway?" Scully asked after a while.

"It's almost two in the morning." She grumbled something in response and he chuckled. "Are you hungry? Pizza is on its way."

"Great timing Mulder." Scully looked up at him with a frown. "How did you know when to order it?"

"You always fall asleep on your back, but when you're about to wake up you roll on your right side," he explained with a careless voice.

"That sounds kind of creepy," she muttered, but she also marvelled at how surprisingly sweet he could still be after so many years.

They enjoyed the silence for a while, watching the movie playing on TV but most likely both thinking about something more challenging than the two sisters arguing over pitches and hits. Scully's whole being was getting back up to speed, getting rid of the numbness of sleep and more likely drifting back to William. Mulder wished that wouldn't happen, but it was a process he couldn't stop. William might have been out of sight and there wasn't much they could do about it for the time being, but now that there was a glimmer of hope it was unlikely he could push the topic away from her easily.

He might as well embrace the fact he would have had to deal with that on his own.

"How are you feeling?"

"Better, I think," she replied to his cautious question. "I know…I think he's safe for now. I guess that's all we can ask for."

 _We,_ he thought. _I wish it really was we Scully._

"He looks like a smart kid," he offered tentatively, more an attempt to see how far he could push himself without breaking down than to further engage in the conversation.

"He was dating two girls at the same time."

"You don't think it takes a smart boy to do that?"

"This isn't exactly something to be proud of as a father," Scully objected with a low grumble, and Mulder again felt a sharp blade of pain and remorse run through his chest.

"I guess it's a matter of points of views," he managed to respond, and apparently he was convincing enough. Scully sat up next to him and got even closer, sinking in his chest as he wrapped his arm around her, hoping she wouldn't feel how fast his heart was beating in his chest.

"He went to see them," she said after a while. "He went to see the girls to make sure they were alright."

"He was the one who called the police when they got hurt I guess," Mulder agreed, absently muttering those words with his lips resting on her forehead. "He was trying to make things right."

"We are going to find him Mulder," she said then, her words sounding like a promise she was making herself more than anything else.

"When the time is right," Mulder whispered to her, "then he's going to come back to us."

Scully nodded and sighed, and Mulder was glad to feel her relaxing in his arms. All considered she was coping well, and he wasn't going to crash her spirit.

He had no idea how long he could keep the secret, but he was going to try his hardest to feed her hopes as long as she didn't get hurt by them. If he couldn't deny the truth for himself, he could at least spare her the painful revelation.


End file.
